Harq for subslot based transmission

ABSTRACT

There is disclosed a method of operating a wireless device in a radio access network, the wireless device being configured with a slot configuration according to which a slot has multiple subslots. The method includes transmitting acknowledgement information reporting on subject transmission in a subslot based on a received timing indication indicating a subslot number for transmitting the acknowledgement information, and based on a subslot offset. There are also disclosed related methods and devices.

TECHNICAL FIELD

This disclosure pertains to radio access technology, in particular for5G networks.

BACKGROUND

Acknowledgement signaling, e.g. HARQ signaling, plays an important roleto provide reliable communication. In many cases, a HARQ codebook isconfigured semi-statically (or fixed over multiple transmission timingstructures), in particular in respect to its size. However, subjecttransmission the HARQ signaling is supposed to report on may varydynamically. To ensure sufficiently reliable HARQ signaling, thecodebook may be configured to have a size large enough to cover amaximum case of subject transmission. However, for cases with lesssubject transmission to report on, this may require padding of the HARQsignaling to fill the codebook size, wasting resources. This isparticularly true with the introduction of subslots, which may carryresources for acknowledgement signaling, in particular in the context offixed codebooks. On the other hand, frequent changes of codebook sizemay lead to significant control signaling overhead.

SUMMARY

There are disclosed approaches allowing the use of acknowledgementsignaling in the context of subslots (e.g., semi-static or fixedcodebooks) with great flexibility, with limited signaling overhead. Theapproaches are particularly advantageously implemented in a 5^(th)Generation (5G) telecommunication network or 5G radio access technologyor network (RAT/RAN), in particular according to 3GPP (3^(rd) GenerationPartnership Project, a standardisation organization). A suitable RAN mayin particular be a RAN according to NR, for example release 15 or later,or LTE Evolution.

There is disclosed a method of operating a wireless device in a radioaccess network. The wireless device is configured with a slotconfiguration according to which a slot has multiple subslots. Themethod comprises transmitting acknowledgement information reporting, ina subslot, on subject transmission based on a received timing indicationindicating a subslot number for transmitting the acknowledgementinformation, and based on a subslot offset.

Also, a wireless device for a radio access network is proposed. Thewireless device is adapted for being configured with a slotconfiguration according to which a slot has multiple subslots, thewireless device further being adapted for transmitting acknowledgementinformation reporting, in a subslot, on subject transmission based on areceived timing indication indicating a subslot number for transmittingthe acknowledgement information, and based on a subslot offset.

A method of operating a network node in a radio access network isconsidered. The method comprises receiving acknowledgement informationfrom a wireless device based on a slot configuration according to whicha slot has multiple subslots, wherein the receiving acknowledgementinformation is based on a subslot based on a timing indicationindicating a subslot number for transmitting the acknowledgementinformation, and based on a subslot offset.

Moreover, a network node for a radio access network is disclosed. Thenetwork node is adapted for receiving acknowledgement information from awireless device based on slot configuration according to which a slothas multiple subslots, wherein the receiving acknowledgement informationis based on a subslot based on a timing indication indicating thesubslot for transmitting the acknowledgement information, and based on asubslot offset.

The approaches described herein allow efficient use of control signalingfor scenarios using subslots. In particular, fixed codebooks, which holdbits for each of the numbers possible for the subslot number, may belimited to a lower number of total bits, limiting potential overhead, assmaller codebooks may be used, which more suitably cover subjecttransmission. This is particularly true, as for a fixed codebook, bitshave to be transmitted for subject transmission even if no subjecttransmission has been scheduled in the associated transmission occasion.

The slot having multiple subslots may be an uplink slot. Each subslot ofa slot may comprise and/or cover one or more symbols (symbol timeintervals) of the slot. Different subslots may have the same number ofsymbols, or a different number of symbols. The slot configuration may beconfigured with higher layer signaling, e.g. RRC signaling and/or MACsignaling. It should be noted that in downlink, there may be noconfigured subslots, or a different slot configuration. The subslotindicated for transmission of acknowledgement information may be subslotin which a suitable resource is available, e.g. a configured PUCCHresource and/or a PUSCH resource. Acknowledgement information may betransmitted on an available resource, e.g. according to a codebook.Receiving acknowledgement information may in general compriseassociating signaling transmitted in the subslot with acknowledgementinformation, and/or monitoring corresponding resources and/or decodingand demodulating received signaling correspondingly. Receivingacknowledgement information may comprise performing retransmissionand/or transmission of data based on the received acknowledgementinformation, e.g. of new data if ACK has been signaled, orretransmission otherwise (if NACK has been signaled). Receivingacknowledgement information may comprise, and/or be based on,transmitting subject signaling and/or configuring the wireless devicewith, and/or indicating, the slot number and/or slot offset. In general,a slot configuration may be valid (pertain to the slots) over aplurality of slots or radio frames, e.g. cover the slots for which thesubject transmissions and/or transmission of acknowledgement informationis intended or scheduled or configured. A slot configuration may bevalid until it is de-configured or reconfigured, e.g. with higher layersignaling like RRC signaling and/or MAC signaling.

It may generally be considered that the timing indication may indicateone of a plurality of values available for transmitting theacknowledgement information. The plurality of values may be configuredor configurable, e.g. with higher layer signaling like RRC or MACsignaling, and/or may be predefined. The plurality of values may be in aset of values. The timing indication may index and/or indicate on of thevalues, e.g. in the set. The timing indication may have a size in bitsallowing to cover the different values, e.g. the smallest power of 2allowing to cover N different values, if there are N different possiblevalues, e.g. in the set. N may for example be between 2 and 8, 16 or 32.Thus, great flexibility for different values is provided, with limitedoverhead. Each value may be an integer, e.g. 0 or larger, e.g. between 1and 32 or 1 and 16 or 1 and 8, or more general, between 2{circumflexover ( )}o and 2{circumflex over ( )}, wherein o <p, and/or o may bebetween 0 and 2, e.g. 1, and/or p may between 2 and 5.

The slot number indicated may in general indicate a number of a subslotin relation to a reference time. In some cases, the subslot number maybe considered to correspond to a k1 value (a time indication in DCI).The reference time may correspond to the end or start of an occurrence,e.g. a subject transmission, or in some cases, a control informationtransmission scheduling a subject transmission and/or an acknowledgementtransmission. A subslot number of 0 may for example correspond to thesubslot in which the reference time occurs, a subslot number of 1 may bethe next subslot, etc. It should be noted that this may consider a timeshift (e.g., a timing advance) between the slot structure of the timereference (which may be in a downlink transmission) and the uplink slotfor which the subslots may be configured.

The subslot offset, and/or a base value of the slot offset, may beconfigured or configurable, e.g. with higher layer signaling like RRC orMAC signaling. This allows flexibility with low signaling overhead. Ingeneral, the subslot offset or base value may represent a subslotintervals, e.g. a number of subslots. The subslot offset, or an integer(including 0) multiple of the base value representing the appliedoffset, may generally be added to the slot number indicated to arrive atthe subslot to be used for transmission.

In some variants, the received timing indication may indicate thesubslot offset to be applied, and/or which multiple of a base value tobe applied. The timing indication may comprise a bit field, e.g. of 1bit or more bits, representing whether the offset is to be applied ornot (e.g., 0 not, 1 apply), and/or which multiple to apply.Alternatively, or additionally, the timing indication may comprise a bitfield representing and/or indicating the slot number. The timingindication may in general be included in a downlink control information,DCI, message, e.g. a scheduling assignment scheduling subjecttransmission, or a scheduling grant, e.g. for “UCI on PUSCH” use.

It may be considered that the subslot offset indicates a group ofsubject transmissions to which the acknowledgement information pertainsto and which are reported together, the group being one out of aplurality of groups of subject transmissions. Each group may correspondto one transmission occasion for acknowledgement information, e.g.according to one codebook.

The subslot offset may be applied based on at least one signalingcharacteristic of a scheduling assignment scheduling subjecttransmission to be reported on and/or of the subject transmission to bereported on. The signaling characteristic may correspond to thebeginning and/or end of the scheduling assignment and/or subjecttransmission. In some cases, the signaling characteristic may pertain tothe slot number (and/or position of the slot in the radio frame) ofreception and/or ending of the subject transmission and/or schedulingassignment. The subset offset may be applied based on a combination of aplurality of signaling characteristics. It may be considered that amapping of signaling characteristic/s to subslot offset is configured orconfigurable, e.g. with RRC signaling and/or MAC signaling.

It may be considered that transmitting acknowledgement information maybe based on a HARQ codebook, wherein the HARQ codebook may compriseand/or structure HARQ feedback or acknowledgement information pertainingto subject transmission/s associated to the same subslot offset. Thus,acknowledgement information may be grouped.

In general, transmitting acknowledgement information may be based on afixed HARQ codebook. The size of the HARQ codebook may be determinedbased on, and/or correspond to, the number N of possible values for theslot number (e.g., the size of the set of values configured orpredefined). With the slot offset, a lower number of such values isneeded, thus the codebook size is more manageable.

It may generally be considered that the timing indication is representedby a bit pattern in a downlink control information message, which may beassociated to a bit field. The bit pattern may index or indicate a slotnumber. In some variants, the bit pattern may additionally comprise abit field (of one or more bits, e.g. 1 or 2 bits) or bit patterncorresponding to the slot offset to be applied, e.g. indicating themultiple of a configured (base) value to be applied.

In some variants, the timing indication may be represented by a bitpattern in a downlink control information message. The bit pattern maybe interpreted differently depending on whether a fixed HARQ codebook isused or a dynamic HARQ codebook is used. For example, for a fixedcodebook, one or more bits of the bit pattern may be interpreted toindicate the slot offset (or a multiple of a base value to be applied asslot offset), whereas the rest may represent the subslot number. For adynamic codebook, the whole bit pattern may indicate the subslot number.Thus, the format of DCI may be kept, and adapted based on context.

Subject transmissions may comprise one or more individual transmissions.Scheduling assignments may comprise one or more scheduling assignments.It should generally be noted that in a distributed system, subjecttransmissions, configuration and/or scheduling may be provided bydifferent nodes or devices or transmission points.

A reception time interval may pertain to the time interval in whichsubject transmission is received. The reception time interval in somevariants may be a slot, or a slot aggregation (which may cover one ormore slots), or a time interval of integer symbols in a slot.

Different subject transmissions (e.g., of subject transmissions) may beon the same carrier or different carriers (e.g., in a carrieraggregation), and/or same or different bandwidth parts, and/or on thesame or different layers or beams, e.g. in a MIMO scenario, and/or tosame or different ports. Generally, subject transmissions may pertain todifferent HARQ processes (or different sub-processes, e.g. in MIMO withdifferent beams/layers associated to the same process identifier, butdifferent sub-process-identifiers like swap bits). A schedulingassignment and/or a HARQ codebook may indicate a target HARQ structure.A target HARQ structure may for example indicate an intended HARQresponse to a subject transmission, e.g. the number of bits and/orwhether to provide code block group level response or not. However, itshould be noted that the actual structure used may differ from thetarget structure, e.g. due to the total size of target structures for asubpattern being larger than the predetermined size.

A predetermined size (e.g., for a fixed HARQ codebook) may for examplebe configured, e.g. with the HARQ codebook configuration. The size maydependent on the number of possible values for the slot number.

Transmitting acknowledgement information may comprise, and/or be basedon determining correct or incorrect reception of subject transmission/s,e.g. based on error coding and/or based on scheduling assignment/sscheduling the subject transmissions. Transmitting acknowledgementinformation may be based on, and/or comprise, a structure foracknowledgement information to transmit, e.g. the structure of one ormore subpatterns, e.g. based on which subject transmission is scheduledfor an associated subdivision. Transmitting acknowledgement informationmay comprise transmitting corresponding signaling, e.g. at one instanceand/or in one message and/or one channel, in particular a physicalchannel, which may be a control channel. In some cases, the channel maybe a shared channel or data channel, e.g. utilising rate-matching of theacknowledgment information. The acknowledgement information maygenerally pertain to a plurality of subject transmissions, which may beon different channels and/or carriers, and/or may comprise datasignaling and/or control signaling. The acknowledgment information maybe based on a codebook, which may be based on one or more sizeindications and/or assignment indications (representing HARQstructures), which may be received with a plurality of controlsignalings and/or control messages, e.g. in the same or differenttransmission timing structures, and/or in the same or different (target)sets of resources. Transmitting acknowledgement information may comprisedetermining the codebook, e.g. based on control information in one ormore control information messages and/or a configuration. A codebook maypertain to transmitting acknowledgement information at a single and/orspecific instant, e.g. a single PUCCH or PUSCH transmission, and/or inone message or with jointly encoded and/or modulated acknowledgementinformation. Generally, acknowledgment information may be transmittedtogether with other control information, e.g. a scheduling requestand/or measurement information.

A network node may be considered an example of a signaling radio node(which transmits subject signaling, e.g.). However, in some scenarios,e.g. sidelink scenarios, the signaling radio node may be a userequipment or terminal or wireless device. Accordingly, the term networknode may be replaced with wireless device or signaling radio nodeherein. A signaling radio node arrangement, also referred to as networknode arrangement, may comprise one or more radio nodes, in particularnetwork nodes, which may be of the same or different types. Differentnodes of the arrangement may be adapted for, and/or provide, differentfunctionalities described herein. In particular, different nodes mayconfigure different codebooks, and/or different nodes may performconfiguring and perceiving. A signaling radio node arrangement may insome variants represent a radio access network, and/or a heterogenousnetwork (HetNet), and/or provide dual (or multiple) connectivity, e.g.comprising an anchor node and a booster node, and/or one or more of eachor either. The radio nodes of a node arrangement may comprise suitableinterfaces for communication between them, e.g. communication interfacesand/or corresponding circuitry. There may generally be considered asignal radio node arrangement, comprising one or more node between whichthe features and/or functionalities of a signaling radio node asdescribed herein may be distributed.

Subject transmission may be data signaling or control signaling. Thetransmission may be on a shared or dedicated channel. Data signaling maybe on a data channel, for example on a PDSCH or PSSCH, or on a dedicateddata channel, e.g. for low latency and/or high reliability, e.g. a URLLCchannel. Control signaling may be on a control channel, for example on acommon control channel or a PDCCH or PSCCH, and/or comprise one or moreDCI messages or SCI messages. In some cases, the subject transmissionmay comprise, or represent, reference signaling. For example, it maycomprise DM-RS and/or pilot signaling and/or discovery signaling and/orsounding signaling and/or phase tracking signaling and/or cell-specificreference signaling and/or user-specific signaling, in particularCSI-RS. A subject transmission may pertain to one scheduling assignmentand/or one acknowledgement signaling process (e.g., according toidentifier or subidentifier), and/or one subdivision. In some cases, asubject transmission may cross the borders of subdivisions in time, e.g.due to being scheduled to start in one subdivision and extending intoanother, or even crossing over more than one subdivision. In this case,it may be considered that the subject transmission is associated to thesubdivision it ends in.

It may be considered that transmitting acknowledgement information, inparticular of acknowledgement information, is based on determiningwhether the subject transmission/s has or have been received correctly,e.g. based on error coding and/or reception quality. Reception qualitymay for example be based on a determined signal quality. Acknowledgementinformation may generally be transmitted to a signaling radio nodeand/or node arrangement and/or to a network.

Acknowledgement information, or bit/s of a subpattern structure of suchinformation, may represent and/or comprise one or more bits, inparticular a pattern of bits. Multiple bits pertaining to a datastructure or substructure or message like a control message may beconsidered a subpattern. The structure or arrangement of acknowledgementinformation may indicate the order, and/or meaning, and/or mapping,and/or pattern of bits (or subpatterns of bits) of the information. Thestructure or mapping may in particular indicate one or more data blockstructures, e.g. code blocks and/or code block groups and/or transportblocks and/or messages, e.g. command messages, the acknowledgementinformation pertains to, and/or which bits or subpattern of bits areassociated to which data block structure. In some cases, the mapping maypertain to one or more acknowledgement signaling processes, e.g.processes with different identifiers, and/or one or more different datastreams. The configuration or structure or codebook may indicate towhich process/es and/or data stream/s the information pertains.Generally, the acknowledgement information may comprise one or moresubpatterns, each of which may pertain to a data block structure, e.g. acode block or code block group or transport block. A subpattern may bearranged to indicate acknowledgement or non-acknowledgement, or anotherretransmission state like non-scheduling or non-reception, of theassociated data block structure. It may be considered that a subpatterncomprises one bit, or in some cases more than one bit. It should benoted that acknowledgement information may be subjected to significantprocessing before being transmitted with acknowledgement signaling.Different configurations may indicate different sizes and/or mappingand/or structures and/or pattern.

An acknowledgment signaling process (providing acknowledgmentinformation) may be a HARQ process, and/or be identified by a processidentifier, e.g. a HARQ process identifier or subidentifier.Acknowledgement signaling and/or associated acknowledgement informationmay be referred to as feedback or acknowledgement feedback. It should benoted that data blocks or structures to which subpatterns may pertainmay be intended to carry data (e.g., information and/or systemic and/orcoding bits). However, depending on transmission conditions, such datamay be received or not received (or not received correctly), which maybe indicated correspondingly in the feedback. In some cases, asubpattern of acknowledgement signaling may comprise padding bits, e.g.if the acknowledgement information for a data block requires fewer bitsthan indicated as size of the subpattern. Such may for example happen ifthe size is indicated by a unit size larger than required for thefeedback.

Acknowledgment information may generally indicate at least ACK or NACK,e.g. pertaining to an acknowledgment signaling process, or an element ofa data block structure like a data block, subblock group or subblock, ora message, in particular a control message. Generally, to anacknowledgment signaling process there may be associated one specificsubpattern and/or a data block structure, for which acknowledgmentinformation may be provided. Acknowledgement information may comprise aplurality of pieces of information, represented in a plurality of HARQstructures.

An acknowledgment signaling process may determine correct or incorrectreception, and/or corresponding acknowledgement information, of a datablock like a transport block, and/or substructures thereof, based oncoding bits associated to the data block, and/or based on coding bitsassociated to one or more data block and/or subblocks and/or subblockgroup/s. Acknowledgement information (determined by an acknowledgementsignaling process) may pertain to the data block as a whole, and/or toone or more subblocks or subblock groups. A code block may be consideredan example of a subblock, whereas a code block group may be consideredan example of a subblock group. Accordingly, the associated subpatternmay comprise one or more bits indicating reception status or feedback ofthe data block, and/or one or more bits indicating reception status orfeedback of one or more subblocks or subblock groups. Each subpattern orbit of the subpattern may be associated and/or mapped to a specific datablock or subblock or subblock group. In some variants, correct receptionfor a data block may be indicated if all subblocks or subblock groupsare correctly identified. In such a case, the subpattern may representacknowledgement information for the data block as a whole, reducingoverhead in comparison to provide acknowledgement information for thesubblocks or subblock groups. The smallest structure (e.g.subblock/subblock group/data block) the subpattern providesacknowledgement information for and/or is associated to may beconsidered its (highest) resolution. In some variants, a subpattern mayprovide acknowledgment information regarding several elements of a datablock structure and/or at different resolution, e.g. to allow morespecific error detection. For example, even if a subpattern indicatesacknowledgment signaling pertaining to a data block as a whole, in somevariants higher resolution (e.g., subblock or subblock group resolution)may be provided by the subpattern. A subpattern may generally compriseone or more bits indicating ACK/NACK for a data block, and/or one ormore bits for indicating ACK/NACK for a subblock or subblock group, orfor more than one subblock or subblock group.

A subblock and/or subblock group may comprise information bits(representing the data to be transmitted, e.g. user data and/ordownlink/sidelink data or uplink data). It may be considered that a datablock and/or subblock and/or subblock group also comprises error one ormore error detection bits, which may pertain to, and/or be determinedbased on, the information bits (for a subblock group, the errordetection bit/s may be determined based on the information bits and/orerror detection bits and/or error correction bits of the subblock/s ofthe subblock group). A data block or substructure like subblock orsubblock group may comprise error correction bits, which may inparticular be determined based on the information bits and errordetection bits of the block or substructure, e.g. utilising an errorcorrection coding scheme, e.g. LDPC or polar coding. Generally, theerror correction coding of a data block structure (and/or associatedbits) may cover and/or pertain to information bits and error detectionbits of the structure. A subblock group may represent a combination ofone or more code blocks, respectively the corresponding bits. A datablock may represent a code block or code block group, or a combinationof more than one code block groups. A transport block may be split up incode blocks and/or code block groups, for example based on the bit sizeof the information bits of a higher layer data structure provided forerror coding and/or size requirements or preferences for error coding,in particular error correction coding. Such a higher layer datastructure is sometimes also referred to as transport block, which inthis context represents information bits without the error coding bitsdescribed herein, although higher layer error handling information maybe included, e.g. for an internet protocol like TCP. However, such errorhandling information represents information bits in the context of thisdisclosure, as the acknowledgement signaling procedures described treatit accordingly.

In some variants, a subblock like a code block may comprise errorcorrection bits, which may be determined based on the information bit/sand/or error detection bit/s of the subblock. An error correction codingscheme may be used for determining the error correction bits, e.g. basedon LDPC or polar coding or Reed-Mueller coding. In some cases, asubblock or code block may be considered to be defined as a block orpattern of bits comprising information bits, error detection bit/sdetermined based on the information bits, and error correction bit/sdetermined based on the information bits and/or error detection bit/s.It may be considered that in a subblock, e.g. code block, theinformation bits (and possibly the error correction bit/s) are protectedand/or covered by the error correction scheme or corresponding errorcorrection bit/s. A code block group may comprise one or more codeblocks. In some variants, no additional error detection bits and/orerror correction bits are applied, however, it may be considered toapply either or both. A transport block may comprise one or more codeblock groups. It may be considered that no additional error detectionbits and/or error correction bits are applied to a transport block,however, it may be considered to apply either or both. In some specificvariants, the code block group/s comprise no additional layers of errordetection or correction coding, and the transport block may compriseonly additional error detection coding bits, but no additional errorcorrection coding. This may particularly be true if the transport blocksize is larger than the code block size and/or the maximum size forerror correction coding. A subpattern of acknowledgement signaling (inparticular indicating ACK or NACK) may pertain to a code block, e.g.indicating whether the code block has been correctly received. It may beconsidered that a subpattern pertains to a subgroup like a code blockgroup or a data block like a transport block. In such cases, it mayindicate ACK, if all subblocks or code blocks of the group ordata/transport block are received correctly (e.g. based on a logical ANDoperation), and NACK or another state of non-correct reception if atleast one subblock or code block has not been correctly received. Itshould be noted that a code block may be considered to be correctlyreceived not only if it actually has been correctly received, but alsoif it can be correctly reconstructed based on soft-combining and/or theerror correction coding.

A subpattern/HARQ structure may pertain to one acknowledgement signalingprocess and/or one carrier like a component carrier and/or data blockstructure or data block. It may in particular be considered that one(e.g. specific and/or single) subpattern pertains, e.g. is mapped by thecodebook, to one (e.g., specific and/or single) acknowledgementsignaling process, e.g. a specific and/or single HARQ process. It may beconsidered that in the bit pattern, subpatterns are mapped toacknowledgement signaling processes and/or data blocks or data blockstructures on a one-to-one basis. In some variants, there may bemultiple subpatterns (and/or associated acknowledgment signalingprocesses) associated to the same component carrier, e.g. if multipledata streams transmitted on the carrier are subject to acknowledgementsignaling processes. A subpattern may comprise one or more bits, thenumber of which may be considered to represent its size or bit size.Different bit n-tupels (n being 1 or larger) of a subpattern may beassociated to different elements of a data block structure (e.g., datablock or subblock or subblock group), and/or represent differentresolutions. There may be considered variants in which only oneresolution is represented by a bit pattern, e.g. a data block. A bitn-tupel may represent acknowledgement information (also referred to afeedback), in particular ACK or NACK, and optionally, (if n>1), mayrepresent DTX/DRX or other reception states. ACK/NACK may be representedby one bit, or by more than one bit, e.g. to improve disambiguity of bitsequences representing ACK or NACK, and/or to improve transmissionreliability.

The acknowledgement information or feedback information may pertain to aplurality of different transmissions, which may be associated to and/orrepresented by data block structures, respectively the associated datablocks or data signaling. The data block structures, and/or thecorresponding blocks and/or signaling, may be scheduled for simultaneoustransmission, e.g. for the same transmission timing structure, inparticular within the same slot or subframe, and/or on the samesymbol/s. However, alternatives with scheduling for non-simultaneoustransmission may be considered. For example, the acknowledgmentinformation may pertain to data blocks scheduled for differenttransmission timing structures, e.g. different slots (or mini-slots, orslots and mini-slots) or similar, which may correspondingly be received(or not or wrongly received). Scheduling signaling may generallycomprise indicating resources, e.g. time and/or frequency resources, forexample for receiving or transmitting the scheduled signaling.

A HARQ codebook may indicate the size in bits of acknowledgment orfeedback information to be transmitted, and/or the arrangement and/orassociation of bits to subject transmission and/or HARQ processes. TheHARQ codebook may be a dynamic codebook, which may be determined basedon one or more indications (e.g., counter DAI or total DAI or uplinkDAI) in one or more control information messages, e.g. DCI messages. Inother cases, a HARQ codebook may be a semi-static codebook or fixedcodebook, with a size that may be based on a configuration, e.g.corresponding to the set of values for subslot numbers, respectively thesize of the set.

A wireless device may be implemented as user equipment or terminal. Thewireless device may comprise, and/or be implemented as, and/or beadapted to utilise, processing circuitry and/or radio circuitry, inparticular a transceiver and/or transmitter and/or receiver, fortransmitting signaling and/or control information and/or communicationsignaling and/or data signaling, and/or for receiving subject signalingand/or control signaling, e.g., the control information message.

A network node may be implemented as a radio network node, e.g. as gNBor IAB (Integrated Access and Backhaul) node or relay node or basestation. In some cases, it may be implemented a wireless device or userequipment, e.g. in a sidelink scenario. The network node may comprise,and/or be implemented as, and/or be adapted to utilise, processingcircuitry and/or radio circuitry, in particular a transceiver and/ortransmitter and/or receiver, for transmitting a control informationmessage and/or other control or data signaling and/or configuring and/ortriggering a wireless device, and/or for receiving (e.g., communicationor data or control) signaling, e.g. signaling carrying theacknowledgement information. The wireless communication network may be aRadio Access Network (RAN), in particular a 5G RAN or NR RAN, or in somescenarios a sidelink or D2D (Device-to-Device) network or IAB network.

There is also considered a program product comprising instructionsadapted for causing processing circuitry to control and/or perform amethod as described herein. Moreover, a carrier medium arrangementcarrying and/or storing a program product as described herein may beconsidered. A system comprising a network node and a UE as describedherein is also described, as well as an associated information system.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The drawings are provided to illustrate concepts and approachesdescribed herein, and are not intended to limit their scope. Thedrawings comprise:

FIG. 1, an exemplary scenario of acknowledgement informationtransmission.

FIG. 2, showing an exemplary wireless device, implemented as userequipment; and

FIG. 3, showing an exemplary network node as an example of a signalingradio node.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

In the following, concepts and approaches are described in the contextof NR technology. However, the concepts and approaches may be applied toother RATs. Moreover, the concepts and approaches may be discussed inthe context of communication between network node (gNB) and UE (wirelessdevice), for uplink transmission of communication signaling, but alsomay be applied to downlink transmission scenarios in some cases. Theymay be generally applied to a sidelink scenario, in which case bothinvolved radio nodes may be UEs, or in a backhaul or relay scenario, inwhich cases both radio nodes may be network nodes.

FIG. 1 shows an exemplary scenario of transmission of acknowledgementinformation in a simplified way. A time sequence of slots is shown, e.g.in a TDD system in which the same frequency bandwidth or carrier is usedfor uplink and downlink transmissions, such that the communicationdirection may change. However, the present approaches are alsoapplicable to FDD systems, in which different frequency bandwidths orcarriers are used for the different communication directions (uplink anddownlink, in this example). There are shown two groups of PDSCHtransmissions representing subject transmission to which acknowledgementsignaling pertains to (reports on). The first group corresponds to aslot offset X=1, the second group to a slot offset of X=0. Each group inthis example comprises 3 subject transmissions. For each subjecttransmission, there is indicated a subslot number K1′. The base valuefor the offset is 3 in this example, other values may be considered. Theactual subslot number for transmission of acknowledgement informationfor each subject transmission corresponds to K1=K1+X*base value (basevalue is also called offset in this example). Thus, the groups aremapped to different PUCCH resources in different subslots.Acknowledgement information for each group is transmitted in a fixedcodebook with a size corresponding to the number of possible values forThese values are configured, in this case represented in the set ofK1′={1,2,3,4}. Thus, there are 4 values, which the codebook has tocover. Without the use of the offset, the set of K1′ values would haveto be larger, requiring a larger codebook. As the codebook also has tocover occurrences in which no subject transmission has been scheduled(indicated with NACK in the acknowledgement information), this can leadto a large overhead in uplink control information.

FIG. 2 schematically shows a radio node, in particular a terminal orwireless device 10, which may in particular be implemented as a UE (UserEquipment). Radio node 10 comprises processing circuitry (which may alsobe referred to as control circuitry) 20, which may comprise a controllerconnected to a memory. Any module of the radio node 10, e.g. acommunicating module or determining module, may be implemented in and/orexecutable by, the processing circuitry 20, in particular as module inthe controller. Radio node 10 also comprises radio circuitry 22providing receiving and transmitting or transceiving functionality(e.g., one or more transmitters and/or receivers and/or transceivers),the radio circuitry 22 being connected or connectable to the processingcircuitry. An antenna circuitry 24 of the radio node 10 is connected orconnectable to the radio circuitry 22 to collect or send and/or amplifysignals. Radio circuitry 22 and the processing circuitry 20 controllingit are configured for cellular communication with a network, e.g. a RANas described herein, and/or for sidelink communication. Radio node 10may generally be adapted to carry out any of the methods of operating aradio node like terminal or UE disclosed herein; in particular, it maycomprise corresponding circuitry, e.g. processing circuitry, and/ormodules.

FIG. 3 schematically show a radio node 100, which may in particular beimplemented as a network node 100, for example an eNB or gNB or similarfor NR. Radio node 100 comprises processing circuitry (which may also bereferred to as control circuitry) 120, which may comprise a controllerconnected to a memory. Any module, e.g. transmitting module and/orreceiving module and/or configuring module of the node 100 may beimplemented in and/or executable by the processing circuitry 120. Theprocessing circuitry 120 is connected to control radio circuitry 122 ofthe node 100, which provides receiver and transmitter and/or transceiverfunctionality (e.g., comprising one or more transmitters and/orreceivers and/or transceivers). An antenna circuitry 124 may beconnected or connectable to radio circuitry 122 for signal reception ortransmittance and/or amplification. Node 100 may be adapted to carry outany of the methods for operating a radio node or network node disclosedherein; in particular, it may comprise corresponding circuitry, e.g.processing circuitry, and/or modules. The antenna circuitry 124 may beconnected to and/or comprise an antenna array. The node 100,respectively its circuitry, may be adapted to perform any of the methodsof operating a network node or a radio node as described herein; inparticular, it may comprise corresponding circuitry, e.g. processingcircuitry, and/or modules. The radio node 100 may generally comprisecommunication circuitry, e.g. for communication with another networknode, like a radio node, and/or with a core network and/or an internetor local net, in particular with an information system, which mayprovide information and/or data to be transmitted to a user equipment.

References to specific resource structures like transmission timingstructure and/or symbol and/or slot and/or mini-slot and/or subcarrierand/or carrier may pertain to a specific numerology, which may bepredefined and/or configured or configurable. A transmission timingstructure may represent a time interval, which may cover one or moresymbols. Some examples of a transmission timing structure aretransmission time interval (TTI), subframe, slot and mini-slot. A slotmay comprise a predetermined, e.g. predefined and/or configured orconfigurable, number of symbols, e.g. 6 or 7, or 12 or 14. A mini-slotmay comprise a number of symbols (which may in particular beconfigurable or configured) smaller than the number of symbols of aslot, in particular 1, 2, 3 or 4 symbols. A transmission timingstructure may cover a time interval of a specific length, which may bedependent on symbol time length and/or cyclic prefix used. Atransmission timing structure may pertain to, and/or cover, a specifictime interval in a time stream, e.g. synchronized for communication.Timing structures used and/or scheduled for transmission, e.g. slotand/or mini-slots, may be scheduled in relation to, and/or synchronizedto, a timing structure provided and/or defined by other transmissiontiming structures. Such transmission timing structures may define atiming grid, e.g., with symbol time intervals within individualstructures representing the smallest timing units. Such a timing gridmay for example be defined by slots or subframes (wherein in some cases,subframes may be considered specific variants of slots). A transmissiontiming structure may have a duration (length in time) determined basedon the durations of its symbols, possibly in addition to cyclicprefix/es used. The symbols of a transmission timing structure may havethe same duration, or may in some variants have different duration. Thenumber of symbols in a transmission timing structure may be predefinedand/or configured or configurable, and/or be dependent on numerology.The timing of a mini-slot may generally be configured or configurable,in particular by the network and/or a network node. The timing may beconfigurable to start and/or end at any symbol of the transmissiontiming structure, in particular one or more slots.

There is generally considered a program product comprising instructionsadapted for causing processing and/or control circuitry to carry outand/or control any method described herein, in particular when executedon the processing and/or control circuitry. Also, there is considered acarrier medium arrangement carrying and/or storing a program product asdescribed herein. A carrier medium arrangement may comprise one or morecarrier media. Generally, a carrier medium may be accessible and/orreadable and/or receivable by processing or control circuitry. Storingdata and/or a program product and/or code may be seen as part ofcarrying data and/or a program product and/or code. A carrier mediumgenerally may comprise a guiding/transporting medium and/or a storagemedium. A guiding/transporting medium may be adapted to carry and/orcarry and/or store signals, in particular electromagnetic signals and/orelectrical signals and/or magnetic signals and/or optical signals. Acarrier medium, in particular a guiding/transporting medium, may beadapted to guide such signals to carry them. A carrier medium, inparticular a guiding/transporting medium, may comprise theelectromagnetic field, e.g. radio waves or microwaves, and/or opticallytransmissive material, e.g. glass fiber, and/or cable. A storage mediummay comprise at least one of a memory, which may be volatile ornon-volatile, a buffer, a cache, an optical disc, magnetic memory, flashmemory, etc.

A system comprising one or more radio nodes as described herein, inparticular a network node and a user equipment, is described. The systemmay be a wireless communication system, and/or provide and/or representa radio access network.

Moreover, there may be generally considered a method of operating aninformation system, the method comprising providing information.Alternatively, or additionally, an information system adapted forproviding information may be considered. Providing information maycomprise providing information for, and/or to, a target system, whichmay comprise and/or be implemented as radio access network and/or aradio node, in particular a network node or user equipment or terminal.Providing information may comprise transferring and/or streaming and/orsending and/or passing on the information, and/or offering theinformation for such and/or for download, and/or triggering suchproviding, e.g. by triggering a different system or node to streamand/or transfer and/or send and/or pass on the information. Theinformation system may comprise, and/or be connected or connectable to,a target, for example via one or more intermediate systems, e.g. a corenetwork and/or internet and/or private or local network. Information maybe provided utilising and/or via such intermediate system/s. Providinginformation may be for radio transmission and/or for transmission via anair interface and/or utilising a RAN or radio node as described herein.Connecting the information system to a target, and/or providinginformation, may be based on a target indication, and/or adaptive to atarget indication. A target indication may indicate the target, and/orone or more parameters of transmission pertaining to the target and/orthe paths or connections over which the information is provided to thetarget. Such parameter/s may in particular pertain to the air interfaceand/or radio access network and/or radio node and/or network node.Example parameters may indicate for example type and/or nature of thetarget, and/or transmission capacity (e.g., data rate) and/or latencyand/or reliability and/or cost, respectively one or more estimatesthereof. The target indication may be provided by the target, ordetermined by the information system, e.g. based on information receivedfrom the target and/or historical information, and/or be provided by auser, for example a user operating the target or a device incommunication with the target, e.g. via the RAN and/or air interface.For example, a user may indicate on a user equipment communicating withthe information system that information is to be provided via a RAN,e.g. by selecting from a selection provided by the information system,for example on a user application or user interface, which may be a webinterface. An information system may comprise one or more informationnodes. An information node may generally comprise processing circuitryand/or communication circuitry. In particular, an information systemand/or an information node may be implemented as a computer and/or acomputer arrangement, e.g. a host computer or host computer arrangementand/or server or server arrangement. In some variants, an interactionserver (e.g., web server) of the information system may provide a userinterface, and based on user input may trigger transmitting and/orstreaming information provision to the user (and/or the target) fromanother server, which may be connected or connectable to the interactionserver and/or be part of the information system or be connected orconnectable thereto. The information may be any kind of data, inparticular data intended for a user of for use at a terminal, e.g. videodata and/or audio data and/or location data and/or interactive dataand/or game-related data and/or environmental data and/or technical dataand/or traffic data and/or vehicular data and/or circumstantial dataand/or operational data. The information provided by the informationsystem may be mapped to, and/or mappable to, and/or be intended formapping to, communication or data signaling and/or one or more datachannels as described herein (which may be signaling or channel/s of anair interface and/or used within a RAN and/or for radio transmission).It may be considered that the information is formatted based on thetarget indication and/or target, e.g. regarding data amount and/or datarate and/or data structure and/or timing, which in particular may bepertaining to a mapping to communication or data signaling and/or a datachannels. Mapping information to data signaling and/or data channel/smay be considered to refer to using the signaling/channel/s to carry thedata, e.g. on higher layers of communication, with thesignaling/channel/s underlying the transmission. A target indicationgenerally may comprise different components, which may have differentsources, and/or which may indicate different characteristics of thetarget and/or communication path/s thereto. A format of information maybe specifically selected, e.g. from a set of different formats, forinformation to be transmitted on an air interface and/or by a RAN asdescribed herein. This may be particularly pertinent since an airinterface may be limited in terms of capacity and/or of predictability,and/or potentially be cost sensitive. The format may be selected to beadapted to the transmission indication, which may in particular indicatethat a RAN or radio node as described herein is in the path (which maybe the indicated and/or planned and/or expected path) of informationbetween the target and the information system. A (communication) path ofinformation may represent the interface/s (e.g., air and/or cableinterfaces) and/or the intermediate system/s (if any), between theinformation system and/or the node providing or transferring theinformation, and the target, over which the information is, or is to be,passed on. A path may be (at least partly) undetermined when a targetindication is provided, and/or the information is provided/transferredby the information system, e.g. if an internet is involved, which maycomprise multiple, dynamically chosen paths. Information and/or a formatused for information may be packet-based, and/or be mapped, and/or bemappable and/or be intended for mapping, to packets. Alternatively, oradditionally, there may be considered a method for operating a targetdevice comprising providing a target indicating to an informationsystem. More alternatively, or additionally, a target device may beconsidered, the target device being adapted for providing a targetindication to an information system. In another approach, there may beconsidered a target indication tool adapted for, and/or comprising anindication module for, providing a target indication to an informationsystem. The target device may generally be a target as described above.A target indication tool may comprise, and/or be implemented as,software and/or application or app, and/or web interface or userinterface, and/or may comprise one or more modules for implementingactions performed and/or controlled by the tool. The tool and/or targetdevice may be adapted for, and/or the method may comprise, receiving auser input, based on which a target indicating may be determined and/orprovided. Alternatively, or additionally, the tool and/or target devicemay be adapted for, and/or the method may comprise, receivinginformation and/or communication signaling carrying information, and/oroperating on, and/or presenting (e.g., on a screen and/or as audio or asother form of indication), information. The information may be based onreceived information and/or communication signaling carryinginformation. Presenting information may comprise processing receivedinformation, e.g. decoding and/or transforming, in particular betweendifferent formats, and/or for hardware used for presenting. Operating oninformation may be independent of or without presenting, and/or proceedor succeed presenting, and/or may be without user interaction or evenuser reception, for example for automatic processes, or target deviceswithout (e.g., regular) user interaction like MTC devices, of forautomotive or transport or industrial use. The information orcommunication signaling may be expected and/or received based on thetarget indication. Presenting and/or operating on information maygenerally comprise one or more processing steps, in particular decodingand/or executing and/or interpreting and/or transforming information.Operating on information may generally comprise relaying and/ortransmitting the information, e.g. on an air interface, which mayinclude mapping the information onto signaling (such mapping maygenerally pertain to one or more layers, e.g. one or more layers of anair interface, e.g. RLC (Radio Link Control) layer and/or MAC layerand/or physical layer/s). The information may be imprinted (or mapped)on communication signaling based on the target indication, which maymake it particularly suitable for use in a RAN (e.g., for a targetdevice like a network node or in particular a UE or terminal). The toolmay generally be adapted for use on a target device, like a UE orterminal. Generally, the tool may provide multiple functionalities, e.g.for providing and/or selecting the target indication, and/or presenting,e.g. video and/or audio, and/or operating on and/or storing receivedinformation. Providing a target indication may comprise transmitting ortransferring the indication as signaling, and/or carried on signaling,in a RAN, for example if the target device is a UE, or the tool for aUE. It should be noted that such provided information may be transferredto the information system via one or more additionally communicationinterfaces and/or paths and/or connections. The target indication may bea higher-layer indication and/or the information provided by theinformation system may be higher-layer information, e.g. applicationlayer or user-layer, in particular above radio layers like transportlayer and physical layer. The target indication may be mapped onphysical layer radio signaling, e.g. related to or on the user-plane,and/or the information may be mapped on physical layer radiocommunication signaling, e.g. related to or on the user-plane (inparticular, in reverse communication directions). The describedapproaches allow a target indication to be provided, facilitatinginformation to be provided in a specific format particularly suitableand/or adapted to efficiently use an air interface. A user input may forexample represent a selection from a plurality of possible transmissionmodes or formats, and/or paths, e.g. in terms of data rate and/orpackaging and/or size of information to be provided by the informationsystem.

In general, a numerology and/or subcarrier spacing may indicate thebandwidth (in frequency domain) of a subcarrier of a carrier, and/or thenumber of subcarriers in a carrier and/or the numbering of thesubcarriers in a carrier. Different numerologies may in particular bedifferent in the bandwidth of a subcarrier. In some variants, all thesubcarriers in a carrier have the same bandwidth associated to them. Thenumerology and/or subcarrier spacing may be different between carriersin particular regarding the subcarrier bandwidth. A symbol time length,and/or a time length of a timing structure pertaining to a carrier maybe dependent on the carrier frequency, and/or the subcarrier spacingand/or the numerology. In particular, different numerologies may havedifferent symbol time lengths.

Uplink or sidelink signaling may be OFDMA (Orthogonal Frequency DivisionMultiple Access) or SC-FDMA (Single Carrier Frequency Division MultipleAccess) signaling. Downlink signaling may in particular be OFDMAsignaling. However, signaling is not limited thereto (Filter-Bank basedsignaling may be considered one alternative).

A radio node may generally be considered a device or node adapted forwireless and/or radio (and/or microwave) frequency communication, and/orfor communication utilising an air interface, e.g. according to acommunication standard.

A radio node may be a network node, or a user equipment or terminal. Anetwork node may be any radio node of a wireless communication network,e.g. a base station and/or gNodeB (gNB) and/or eNodeB (eNB) and/or relaynode and/or micro/nano/pico/femto node and/or transmission point (TP)and/or access point (AP) and/or other node, in particular for a RAN asdescribed herein.

The terms wireless device, user equipment (UE) and terminal may beconsidered to be interchangeable in the context of this disclosure. Awireless device, user equipment or terminal may represent an end devicefor communication utilising the wireless communication network, and/orbe implemented as a user equipment according to a standard. Examples ofuser equipments may comprise a phone like a smartphone, a personalcommunication device, a mobile phone or terminal, a computer, inparticular laptop, a sensor or machine with radio capability (and/oradapted for the air interface), in particular for MTC(Machine-Type-Communication, sometimes also referred to M2M,Machine-To-Machine), or a vehicle adapted for wireless communication. Auser equipment or terminal may be mobile or stationary. A wirelessdevice generally may comprise, and/or be implemented as, processingcircuitry and/or radio circuitry, which may comprise one or more chipsor sets of chips. The circuitry and/or circuitries may be packaged, e.g.in a chip housing, and/or may have one or more physical interfaces tointeract with other circuitry and/or for power supply. Such a wirelessdevice may be intended for use in a user equipment or terminal.

A radio node may generally comprise processing circuitry and/or radiocircuitry. A radio node, in particular a network node, may in some casescomprise cable circuitry and/or communication circuitry, with which itmay be connected or connectable to another radio node and/or a corenetwork. Circuitry may comprise integrated circuitry. Processingcircuitry may comprise one or more processors and/or controllers (e.g.,microcontrollers), and/or ASICs (Application Specific IntegratedCircuitry) and/or FPGAs (Field Programmable Gate Array), or similar. Itmay be considered that processing circuitry comprises, and/or is(operatively) connected or connectable to one or more memories or memoryarrangements. A memory arrangement may comprise one or more memories. Amemory may be adapted to store digital information. Examples formemories comprise volatile and non-volatile memory, and/or Random AccessMemory (RAM), and/or Read-Only-Memory (ROM), and/or magnetic and/oroptical memory, and/or flash memory, and/or hard disk memory, and/orEPROM or EEPROM (Erasable Programmable ROM or Electrically ErasableProgrammable ROM). Radio circuitry may comprise one or more transmittersand/or receivers and/or transceivers (a transceiver may operate or beoperable as transmitter and receiver, and/or may comprise joint orseparated circuitry for receiving and transmitting, e.g. in one packageor housing), and/or may comprise one or more amplifiers and/oroscillators and/or filters, and/or may comprise, and/or be connected orconnectable to antenna circuitry and/or one or more antennas and/orantenna arrays. An antenna array may comprise one or more antennas,which may be arranged in a dimensional array, e.g. 2D or 3D array,and/or antenna panels. A remote radio head (RRH) may be considered as anexample of an antenna array. However, in some variants, a RRH may bealso be implemented as a network node, depending on the kind ofcircuitry and/or functionality implemented therein. Communicationcircuitry may comprise radio circuitry and/or cable circuitry.Communication circuitry generally may comprise one or more interfaces,which may be air interface/s and/or cable interface/s and/or opticalinterface/s, e.g. laser-based. Interface/s may be in particularpacket-based. Cable circuitry and/or a cable interfaces may comprise,and/or be connected or connectable to, one or more cables (e.g., opticalfiber-based and/or wire-based), which may be directly or indirectly(e.g., via one or more intermediate systems and/or interfaces) beconnected or connectable to a target, e.g. controlled by communicationcircuitry and/or processing circuitry.

Any one or all of the modules disclosed herein may be implemented insoftware and/or firmware and/or hardware. Different modules may beassociated to different components of a radio node, e.g. differentcircuitries or different parts of a circuitry. It may be considered thata module is distributed over different components and/or circuitries. Aprogram product as described herein may comprise the modules related toa device on which the program product is intended (e.g., a userequipment or network node) to be executed (the execution may beperformed on, and/or controlled by the associated circuitry).

A wireless communication network may be and/or comprise a Radio AccessNetwork (RAN), which may be and/or comprise any kind of cellular and/orwireless radio network, which may be connected or connectable to a corenetwork. The approaches described herein are particularly suitable for a5G network, e.g. LTE Evolution and/or NR (New Radio), respectivelysuccessors thereof. A RAN may comprise one or more network nodes, and/orone or more terminals, and/or one or more radio nodes. A network nodemay in particular be a radio node adapted for radio and/or wirelessand/or cellular communication with one or more terminals. A terminal maybe any device adapted for radio and/or wireless and/or cellularcommunication with or within a RAN, e.g. a user equipment (UE) or mobilephone or smartphone or computing device or vehicular communicationdevice or device for machine-type-communication (MTC), etc. A terminalmay be mobile, or in some cases stationary. A RAN or a wirelesscommunication network may comprise at least one network node and a UE,or at least two radio nodes. There may be generally considered awireless communication network or system, e.g. a RAN or RAN system,comprising at least one radio node, and/or at least one network node andat least one terminal.

Transmitting in downlink may pertain to transmission from the network ornetwork node to the terminal. Transmitting in uplink may pertain totransmission from the terminal to the network or network node.Transmitting in sidelink may pertain to (direct) transmission from oneterminal to another. Uplink, downlink and sidelink (e.g., sidelinktransmission and reception) may be considered communication directions.In some variants, uplink and downlink may also be used to describedwireless communication between network nodes, e.g. for wireless backhauland/or relay communication and/or (wireless) network communication forexample between base stations or similar network nodes, in particularcommunication terminating at such. It may be considered that backhauland/or relay communication and/or network communication is implementedas a form of sidelink or uplink communication or similar thereto.

Control information or a control information message or correspondingsignaling (control signaling) may be transmitted on a control channel,e.g. a physical control channel, which may be a downlink channel or (ora sidelink channel in some cases, e.g. one UE scheduling another UE).For example, control information/allocation information may be signaledby a network node on PDCCH (Physical Downlink Control Channel) and/or aPDSCH (Physical Downlink Shared Channel) and/or a HARQ-specific channel.Acknowledgement signaling, e.g. as a form of control information orsignaling like uplink control information/signaling, may be transmittedby a terminal on a PUCCH (Physical Uplink Control Channel) and/or PUSCH(Physical Uplink Shared Channel) and/or a HARQ-specific channel.Multiple channels may apply for multi-component/multi-carrier indicationor signaling.

Signaling may generally be considered to represent an electromagneticwave structure (e.g., over a time interval and frequency interval),which is intended to convey information to at least one specific orgeneric (e.g., anyone who might pick up the signaling) target. A processof signaling may comprise transmitting the signaling. Transmittingsignaling, in particular control signaling or communication signaling,e.g. comprising or representing acknowledgement signaling and/orresource requesting information, may comprise encoding and/ormodulating. Encoding and/or modulating may comprise error detectioncoding and/or forward error correction encoding and/or scrambling.Receiving control signaling may comprise corresponding decoding and/ordemodulation. Error detection coding may comprise, and/or be based on,parity or checksum approaches, e.g. CRC (Cyclic Redundancy Check).Forward error correction coding may comprise and/or be based on forexample turbo coding and/or Reed-Muller coding, and/or polar codingand/or LDPC coding (Low Density Parity Check). The type of coding usedmay be based on the channel (e.g., physical channel) the coded signal isassociated to. A code rate may represent the ratio of the number ofinformation bits before encoding to the number of encoded bits afterencoding, considering that encoding adds coding bits for error detectioncoding and forward error correction. Coded bits may refer to informationbits (also called systematic bits) plus coding bits.

A resource like a resource structure or communication resource (e.g.,transmission resource or reception resource) may be considered availableto the wireless device, if the wireless device is aware or has been madeaware of the resource as potentially useable by it for transmission orreception or communication, e.g. when it is or may be allowed orconfigured or scheduled to use it. A resource may be configured to thewireless device, e.g. with higher layer signaling like RRC signaling orMAC signaling or broadcast signaling, to be available. A resource may beassociated (e.g., by scheduling or configuration) to a type of signalingor channel, e.g. to control signaling or data signaling, and/or to PUCCHor SR or PUSCH. Examples of such may for example be configured resourcesfor control signaling, e.g. a scheduling request, or a configuredresource for data signaling (sometimes also referred to as grant-freeresource, in particular for uplink), e.g. on PUSCH or PDSCH. Aconfigured resource for data signaling may be triggered on or off, e.g.with control signaling, e.g. DCI signaling and/or the controlinformation message. Such resources may be generally referred to asconfigured resources and/or be considered to be semi-static (e.g., untilreconfigured with higher-layer signaling) or semi-persistent resources(e.g., triggered with control signaling). In some cases, a configuredresource may be a resource that is available without needing activationor triggering or scheduling with a control information message, or asemi-persistent resource. Configured resources may in some cases beconsidered to be available over a long and/or undetermined (e.g., at thetime of configuration or scheduling or allocation) timeframe or timeinterval, e.g. longer than one slot, or longer than M slots (M>1 and/orconfigurable), and/or until a change in setup occurs or a specific eventoccurs, e.g. reconfiguration (on higher-layer, e.g. RRC or MAC) ortriggered off (e.g., with control signaling like DCI or SCI, inparticular for semi-persistent). A CORESET for reception of controlsignaling like PDCCH signaling or DCI signaling (or a search space forcontrol signaling) may be considered a configured resource in someexamples. Alternatively, a resource available to a wireless device may aresource scheduled or allocated with control signaling, in particularphysical layer signaling like DCI signaling, e.g. the controlinformation message. Such resources may be referred to as (dynamically)scheduled resources. Scheduled resources may for example comprisedynamically scheduled resources for data signaling, e.g. on PUSCH orPDSCH (for example, according to Type A or Type B scheduling in NR), orresources for control signaling indicated in control signaling, e.g. DCIor SCI, for example PUCCH resources (e.g., one of a set or pool ofresources indicated in the signaling, e.g. a PRI, PUCCH resourceindicator). In some cases, scheduled resources may generally beconsidered resources available or valid for a short (e.g., one slot orseveral slots, e.g. 16 or fewer slots, or 1 frame) or specific ordetermined (e.g., at the time of scheduling or allocation) time frame ortime interval or duration, e.g. a slot (or more than one slot, e.g. forscheduled aggregation). A resource or resource structure available orscheduled for transmission may be considered a transmission resource ortransmission resource structure. In general, transmission utilising aresource or resource structure may cover the resource structure partlyor fully, e.g. using only a part or all of the resource elements of theresource structure. It may be generally considered that a resourcestructure may be logically addressable by control signaling as a unit,and/or may be configured jointly or as a unit, and/or representneighbouring and/or consecutive resource elements (e.g., in time and/orfrequency space, and/or physically or virtually, e.g. if virtualresource allocation is utilised).

Communication signaling may comprise, and/or represent, and/or beimplemented as, data signaling, and/or user plane signaling.Communication signaling may be associated to a data channel, e.g. aphysical downlink channel or physical uplink channel or physicalsidelink channel, in particular a PDSCH (Physical Downlink SharedChannel) or PSSCH (Physical Sidelink Shared Channel). Generally, a datachannel may be a shared channel or a dedicated channel. Data signalingmay be signaling associated to and/or on a data channel.

An indication generally may explicitly and/or implicitly indicate theinformation it represents and/or indicates. Implicit indication may forexample be based on position and/or resource used for transmission.Explicit indication may for example be based on a parametrisation withone or more parameters, and/or one or more index or indices, and/or oneor more bit patterns representing the information. It may in particularbe considered that control signaling as described herein, based on theutilised resource sequence, implicitly indicates the control signalingtype.

A resource element may generally describe the smallest individuallyusable and/or encodable and/or decodable and/or modulatable and/ordemodulatable time-frequency resource, and/or may describe atime-frequency resource covering a symbol time length in time and asubcarrier in frequency. A signal may be allocatable and/or allocated toa resource element. A subcarrier may be a subband of a carrier, e.g. asdefined by a standard. A carrier may define a frequency and/or frequencyband for transmission and/or reception. In some variants, a signal(jointly encoded/modulated) may cover more than one resource elements. Aresource element may generally be as defined by a correspondingstandard, e.g. NR or LTE. As symbol time length and/or subcarrierspacing (and/or numerology) may be different between different symbolsand/or subcarriers, different resource elements may have differentextension (length/width) in time and/or frequency domain, in particularresource elements pertaining to different carriers.

A resource generally may represent a time-frequency and/or coderesource, on which signaling, e.g. according to a specific format, maybe communicated, for example transmitted and/or received, and/or beintended for transmission and/or reception.

Configuring a radio node, in particular a terminal or user equipment,may refer to the radio node being adapted or caused or set and/orinstructed to operate according to the configuration. Configuring may bedone by another device, e.g., a network node (for example, a radio nodeof the network like a base station or eNodeB) or network, in which caseit may comprise transmitting configuration data to the radio node to beconfigured. Such configuration data may represent the configuration tobe configured and/or comprise one or more instruction pertaining to aconfiguration, e.g. a configuration for transmitting and/or receiving onallocated resources, in particular frequency resources. A radio node mayconfigure itself, e.g., based on configuration data received from anetwork or network node. A network node may utilise, and/or be adaptedto utilise, its circuitry/ies for configuring. Allocation informationmay be considered a form of configuration data. Configuration data maycomprise and/or be represented by configuration information, and/or oneor more corresponding indications and/or message/s

Generally, configuring may include determining configuration datarepresenting the configuration and providing, e.g. transmitting, it toone or more other nodes (parallel and/or sequentially), which maytransmit it further to the radio node (or another node, which may berepeated until it reaches the wireless device). Alternatively, oradditionally, configuring a radio node, e.g., by a network node or otherdevice, may include receiving configuration data and/or data pertainingto configuration data, e.g., from another node like a network node,which may be a higher-level node of the network, and/or transmittingreceived configuration data to the radio node. Accordingly, determininga configuration and transmitting the configuration data to the radionode may be performed by different network nodes or entities, which maybe able to communicate via a suitable interface, e.g., an X2 interfacein the case of LTE or a corresponding interface for NR. Configuring aterminal may comprise scheduling downlink and/or uplink transmissionsfor the terminal, e.g. downlink data and/or downlink control signalingand/or DCI and/or uplink control or data or communication signaling, inparticular acknowledgement signaling, and/or configuring resourcesand/or a resource pool therefor.

A resource structure may be considered to be neighbored in frequencydomain by another resource structure, if they share a common borderfrequency, e.g. one as an upper frequency border and the other as alower frequency border. Such a border may for example be represented bythe upper end of a bandwidth assigned to a subcarrier n, which alsorepresents the lower end of a bandwidth assigned to a subcarrier n+1. Aresource structure may be considered to be neighbored in time domain byanother resource structure, if they share a common border time, e.g. oneas an upper (or right in the figures) border and the other as a lower(or left in the figures) border. Such a border may for example berepresented by the end of the symbol time interval assigned to a symboln, which also represents the beginning of a symbol time intervalassigned to a symbol n+1.

Generally, a resource structure being neighbored by another resourcestructure in a domain may also be referred to as abutting and/orbordering the other resource structure in the domain.

A resource structure may general represent a structure in time and/orfrequency domain, in particular representing a time interval and afrequency interval. A resource structure may comprise and/or becomprised of resource elements, and/or the time interval of a resourcestructure may comprise and/or be comprised of symbol time interval/s,and/or the frequency interval of a resource structure may compriseand/or be comprised of subcarrier/s. A resource element may beconsidered an example for a resource structure, a slot or mini-slot or aPhysical Resource Block (PRB) or parts thereof may be considered others.A resource structure may be associated to a specific channel, e.g. aPUSCH or PUCCH, in particular resource structure smaller than a slot orPRB.

Examples of a resource structure in frequency domain comprise abandwidth or band, or a bandwidth part. A bandwidth part may be a partof a bandwidth available for a radio node for communicating, e.g. due tocircuitry and/or configuration and/or regulations and/or a standard. Abandwidth part may be configured or configurable to a radio node. Insome variants, a bandwidth part may be the part of a bandwidth used forcommunicating, e.g. transmitting and/or receiving, by a radio node. Thebandwidth part may be smaller than the bandwidth (which may be a devicebandwidth defined by the circuitry/configuration of a device, and/or asystem bandwidth, e.g. available for a RAN). It may be considered that abandwidth part comprises one or more resource blocks or resource blockgroups, in particular one or more PRBs or PRB groups. A bandwidth partmay pertain to, and/or comprise, one or more carriers.

A carrier may generally represent a frequency range or band and/orpertain to a central frequency and an associated frequency interval. Itmay be considered that a carrier comprises a plurality of subcarriers. Acarrier may have assigned to it a central frequency or center frequencyinterval, e.g. represented by one or more subcarriers (to eachsubcarrier there may be generally assigned a frequency bandwidth orinterval). Different carriers may be non-overlapping, and/or may beneighboring in frequency domain.

It should be noted that the term “radio” in this disclosure may beconsidered to pertain to wireless communication in general, and may alsoinclude wireless communication utilising microwave and/or millimeterand/or other frequencies, in particular between 100 MHz or 1 GHz, and100 GHz or 20 or 10 GHz. Such communication may utilise one or morecarriers.

A radio node, in particular a network node or a terminal, may generallybe any device adapted for transmitting and/or receiving radio and/orwireless signals and/or data, in particular communication data, inparticular on at least one carrier. The at least one carrier maycomprise a carrier accessed based on a LBT procedure (which may becalled LBT carrier), e.g., an unlicensed carrier. It may be consideredthat the carrier is part of a carrier aggregate.

Receiving or transmitting on a cell or carrier may refer to receiving ortransmitting utilizing a frequency (band) or spectrum associated to thecell or carrier. A cell may generally comprise and/or be defined by orfor one or more carriers, in particular at least one carrier for ULcommunication/transmission (called UL carrier) and at least one carrierfor DL communication/transmission (called DL carrier). It may beconsidered that a cell comprises different numbers of UL carriers and DLcarriers. Alternatively, or additionally, a cell may comprise at leastone carrier for UL communication/transmission and DLcommunication/transmission, e.g., in TDD-based approaches.

A channel may generally be a logical, transport or physical channel. Achannel may comprise and/or be arranged on one or more carriers, inparticular a plurality of subcarriers. A channel carrying and/or forcarrying control signaling/control information may be considered acontrol channel, in particular if it is a physical layer channel and/orif it carries control plane information. Analogously, a channel carryingand/or for carrying data signaling/user information may be considered adata channel, in particular if it is a physical layer channel and/or ifit carries user plane information. A channel may be defined for aspecific communication direction, or for two complementary communicationdirections (e.g., UL and DL, or sidelink in two directions), in whichcase it may be considered to have two component channels, one for eachdirection. Examples of channels comprise a channel for low latencyand/or high reliability transmission, in particular a channel forUltra-Reliable Low Latency Communication (URLLC), which may be forcontrol and/or data.

In general, a symbol may represent and/or be associated to a symbol timelength, which may be dependent on the carrier and/or subcarrier spacingand/or numerology of the associated carrier. Accordingly, a symbol maybe considered to indicate a time interval having a symbol time length inrelation to frequency domain. A symbol time length may be dependent on acarrier frequency and/or bandwidth and/or numerology and/or subcarrierspacing of, or associated to, a symbol. Accordingly, different symbolsmay have different symbol time lengths. In particular, numerologies withdifferent subcarrier spacings may have different symbol time length.Generally, a symbol time length may be based on, and/or include, a guardtime interval or cyclic extension, e.g. prefix or postfix.

A sidelink may generally represent a communication channel (or channelstructure) between two UEs and/or terminals, in which data istransmitted between the participants (UEs and/or terminals) via thecommunication channel, e.g. directly and/or without being relayed via anetwork node. A sidelink may be established only and/or directly via airinterface/s of the participant, which may be directly linked via thesidelink communication channel. In some variants, sidelink communicationmay be performed without interaction by a network node, e.g. on fixedlydefined resources and/or on resources negotiated between theparticipants. Alternatively, or additionally, it may be considered thata network node provides some control functionality, e.g. by configuringresources, in particular one or more resource pool/s, for sidelinkcommunication, and/or monitoring a sidelink, e.g. for charging purposes.

Sidelink communication may also be referred to as device-to-device (D2D)communication, and/or in some cases as ProSe (Proximity Services)communication, e.g. in the context of LTE. A sidelink may be implementedin the context of V2x communication (Vehicular communication), e.g. V2V(Vehicle-to-Vehicle), V2I (Vehicle-to-Infrastructure) and/or V2P(Vehicle-to-Person). Any device adapted for sidelink communication maybe considered a user equipment or terminal.

A sidelink communication channel (or structure) may comprise one or more(e.g., physical or logical) channels, e.g. a PSCCH (Physical SidelinkControl CHannel, which may for example carry control information like anacknowledgement position indication, and/or a PSSCH (Physical SidelinkShared CHannel, which for example may carry data and/or acknowledgementsignaling). It may be considered that a sidelink communication channel(or structure) pertains to and/or used one or more carrier/s and/orfrequency range/s associated to, and/or being used by, cellularcommunication, e.g. according to a specific license and/or standard.Participants may share a (physical) channel and/or resources, inparticular in frequency domain and/or related to a frequency resourcelike a carrier) of a sidelink, such that two or more participantstransmit thereon, e.g. simultaneously, and/or time-shifted, and/or theremay be associated specific channels and/or resources to specificparticipants, so that for example only one participant transmits on aspecific channel or on a specific resource or specific resources, e.g.,in frequency domain and/or related to one or more carriers orsubcarriers.

A sidelink may comply with, and/or be implemented according to, aspecific standard, e.g. a LTE-based standard and/or NR. A sidelink mayutilise TDD (Time Division Duplex) and/or FDD (Frequency DivisionDuplex) technology, e.g. as configured by a network node, and/orpreconfigured and/or negotiated between the participants. A userequipment may be considered to be adapted for sidelink communication ifit, and/or its radio circuitry and/or processing circuitry, is adaptedfor utilising a sidelink, e.g. on one or more frequency ranges and/orcarriers and/or in one or more formats, in particular according to aspecific standard. It may be generally considered that a Radio AccessNetwork is defined by two participants of a sidelink communication.Alternatively, or additionally, a Radio Access Network may berepresented, and/or defined with, and/or be related to a network nodeand/or communication with such a node.

Generally, carrier aggregation (CA) may refer to the concept of a radioconnection and/or communication link between a wireless and/or cellularcommunication network and/or network node and a terminal or on asidelink comprising a plurality of carriers for at least one directionof transmission (e.g. DL and/or UL), as well as to the aggregate ofcarriers. A corresponding communication link may be referred to ascarrier aggregated communication link or CA communication link; carriersin a carrier aggregate may be referred to as component carriers (CC). Insuch a link, data may be transmitted over more than one of the carriersand/or all the carriers of the carrier aggregation (the aggregate ofcarriers). A carrier aggregation may comprise one (or more) dedicatedcontrol carriers and/or primary carriers (which may e.g. be referred toas primary component carrier or PCC), over which control information maybe transmitted, wherein the control information may refer to the primarycarrier and other carriers, which may be referred to as secondarycarriers (or secondary component carrier, SCC). However, in someapproaches, control information may be send over more than one carrierof an aggregate, e.g. one or more PCCs and one PCC and one or more SCCs.

A transmission may generally pertain to a specific channel and/orspecific resources, in particular with a starting symbol and endingsymbol in time, covering the interval therebetween. A scheduledtransmission may be a transmission scheduled and/or expected and/or forwhich resources are scheduled or provided or reserved. However, notevery scheduled transmission has to be realized. For example, ascheduled downlink transmission may not be received, or a scheduleduplink transmission may not be transmitted due to power limitations, orother influences (e.g., a channel on an unlicensed carrier beingoccupied). A transmission may be scheduled for a transmission timingsubstructure (e.g., a mini-slot, and/or covering only a part of atransmission timing structure) within a transmission timing structurelike a slot. A border symbol may be indicative of a symbol in thetransmission timing structure at which the transmission starts or ends.

Predefined in the context of this disclosure may refer to the relatedinformation being defined for example in a standard, and/or beingavailable without specific configuration from a network or network node,e.g. stored in memory, for example independent of being configured.Configured or configurable may be considered to pertain to thecorresponding information being set/configured, e.g. by the network or anetwork node.

A configuration or schedule, like a mini-slot configuration and/orstructure configuration, may schedule transmissions, e.g. for thetime/transmissions it is valid, and/or transmissions may be scheduled byseparate signaling or separate configuration, e.g. separate RRCsignaling and/or downlink control information signaling. Thetransmission/s scheduled may represent signaling to be transmitted bythe device for which it is scheduled, or signaling to be received by thedevice for which it is scheduled, depending on which side of acommunication the device is. It should be noted that downlink controlinformation or specifically DCI signaling may be considered physicallayer signaling, in contrast to higher layer signaling like MAC (MediumAccess Control) signaling or RRC layer signaling. The higher the layerof signaling is, the less frequent/the more time/resource consuming itmay be considered, at least partially due to the information containedin such signaling having to be passed on through several layers, eachlayer requiring processing and handling.

A scheduled transmission, and/or transmission timing structure like amini-slot or slot, may pertain to a specific channel, in particular aphysical uplink shared channel, a physical uplink control channel, or aphysical downlink shared channel, e.g. PUSCH, PUCCH or PDSCH, and/or maypertain to a specific cell and/or carrier aggregation. A correspondingconfiguration, e.g. scheduling configuration or symbol configuration maypertain to such channel, cell and/or carrier aggregation. It may beconsidered that the scheduled transmission represents transmission on aphysical channel, in particular a shared physical channel, for example aphysical uplink shared channel or physical downlink shared channel. Forsuch channels, semi-persistent configuring may be particularly suitable.

A configuration may be embedded in, and/or comprised in, a message orconfiguration or corresponding data, which may indicate and/or scheduleresources, in particular semi-persistently and/or semi-statically. Theduration of a symbol (symbol time length or interval) of thetransmission timing structure may generally be dependent on a numerologyand/or carrier, wherein the numerology and/or carrier may beconfigurable. The numerology may be the numerology to be used for thescheduled transmission.

Scheduling a device, or for a device, and/or related transmission orsignaling, may be considered comprising, or being a form of, configuringthe device with resources, and/or of indicating to the device resources,e.g. to use for communicating. Scheduling may in particular pertain to atransmission timing structure, or a substructure thereof (e.g., a slotor a mini-slot, which may be considered a substructure of a slot). Itmay be considered that a border symbol may be identified and/ordetermined in relation to the transmission timing structure even if fora substructure being scheduled, e.g. if an underlying timing grid isdefined based on the transmission timing structure. Signaling indicatingscheduling may comprise corresponding scheduling information and/or beconsidered to represent or contain configuration data indicating thescheduled transmission and/or comprising scheduling information. Suchconfiguration data or signaling may be considered a resourceconfiguration or scheduling configuration. It should be noted that sucha configuration (in particular as single message) in some cases may notbe complete without other configuration data, e.g. configured with othersignaling, e.g. higher layer signaling. In particular, the symbolconfiguration may be provided in addition to scheduling/resourceconfiguration to identify exactly which symbols are assigned to ascheduled transmission. A scheduling (or resource) configuration mayindicate transmission timing structure/s and/or resource amount (e.g.,in number of symbols or length in time) for a scheduled transmission.

A scheduled transmission may be transmission scheduled, e.g. by thenetwork or network node. Transmission may in this context may be uplink(UL) or downlink (DL) or sidelink (SL) transmission. A device, e.g. auser equipment, for which the scheduled transmission is scheduled, mayaccordingly be scheduled to receive (e.g., in DL or SL), or to transmit(e.g. in UL or SL) the scheduled transmission. Scheduling transmissionmay in particular be considered to comprise configuring a scheduleddevice with resource/s for this transmission, and/or informing thedevice that the transmission is intended and/or scheduled for someresources. A transmission may be scheduled to cover a time interval, inparticular a successive number of symbols, which may form a continuousinterval in time between (and including) a starting symbol and an endingsymbols. The starting symbol and the ending symbol of a (e.g.,scheduled) transmission may be within the same transmission timingstructure, e.g. the same slot. However, in some cases, the ending symbolmay be in a later transmission timing structure than the startingsymbol, in particular a structure following in time. To a scheduledtransmission, a duration may be associated and/or indicated, e.g. in anumber of symbols or associated time intervals. In some variants, theremay be different transmissions scheduled in the same transmission timingstructure. A scheduled transmission may be considered to be associatedto a specific channel, e.g. a shared channel like PUSCH or PDSCH.

In the context of this disclosure, there may be distinguished betweendynamically scheduled or aperiodic transmission and/or configuration,and semi-static or semi-persistent or periodic transmission and/orconfiguration. The term “dynamic” or similar terms may generally pertainto configuration/transmission valid and/or scheduled and/or configuredfor (relatively) short timescales and/or a (e.g., predefined and/orconfigured and/or limited and/or definite) number of occurrences and/ortransmission timing structures, e.g. one or more transmission timingstructures like slots or slot aggregations, and/or for one or more(e.g., specific number) of transmission/occurrences. Dynamicconfiguration may be based on low-level signaling, e.g. controlsignaling on the physical layer and/or MAC layer, in particular in theform of DCI or SCI. Periodic/semi-static may pertain to longertimescales, e.g. several slots and/or more than one frame, and/or anon-defined number of occurrences, e.g., until a dynamic configurationcontradicts, or until a new periodic configuration arrives. A periodicor semi-static configuration may be based on, and/or be configured with,higher-layer signaling, in particular RCL layer signaling and/or RRCsignaling and/or MAC signaling.

A transmission timing structure may comprise a plurality of symbols,and/or define an interval comprising several symbols (respectively theirassociated time intervals). In the context of this disclosure, it shouldbe noted that a reference to a symbol for ease of reference may beinterpreted to refer to the time domain projection or time interval ortime component or duration or length in time of the symbol, unless it isclear from the context that the frequency domain component also has tobe considered. Examples of transmission timing structures include slot,subframe, mini-slot (which also may be considered a substructure of aslot), slot aggregation (which may comprise a plurality of slots and maybe considered a superstructure of a slot), respectively their timedomain component. A transmission timing structure may generally comprisea plurality of symbols defining the time domain extension (e.g.,interval or length or duration) of the transmission timing structure,and arranged neighboring to each other in a numbered sequence. A timingstructure (which may also be considered or implemented assynchronisation structure) may be defined by a succession of suchtransmission timing structures, which may for example define a timinggrid with symbols representing the smallest grid structures. Atransmission timing structure, and/or a border symbol or a scheduledtransmission may be determined or scheduled in relation to such a timinggrid. A transmission timing structure of reception may be thetransmission timing structure in which the scheduling control signalingis received, e.g. in relation to the timing grid. A transmission timingstructure may in particular be a slot or subframe or in some cases, amini-slot.

Acknowledgement information may comprise an indication of a specificvalue or state for an acknowledgement signaling process, e.g. ACK orNACK or DTX. Such an indication may for example represent a bit or bitvalue or bit pattern or an information switch. Different levels ofacknowledgement information, e.g. providing differentiated informationabout quality of reception and/or error position in received dataelement/s may be considered and/or represented by control signaling.Acknowledgment information may generally indicate acknowledgment ornon-acknowledgment or non-reception or different levels thereof, e.g.representing ACK or NACK or DTX. Acknowledgment information may pertainto one acknowledgement signaling process. Acknowledgement signaling maycomprise acknowledgement information pertaining to one or moreacknowledgement signaling processes, in particular one or more HARQ orARQ processes. It may be considered that to each acknowledgmentsignaling process the acknowledgement information pertains to, aspecific number of bits of the information size of the control signalingis assigned. Measurement reporting signaling may comprise measurementinformation.

A code block may be considered a subelement of a data element like atransport block, e.g., a transport block may comprise a one or aplurality of code blocks.

A scheduling assignment may be configured with control signaling, e.g.downlink control signaling or sidelink control signaling. Such controlssignaling may be considered to represent and/or comprise schedulingsignaling, which may indicate scheduling information. A schedulingassignment may be considered scheduling information indicatingscheduling of signaling/transmission of signaling, in particularpertaining to signaling received or to be received by the deviceconfigured with the scheduling assignment. It may be considered that ascheduling assignment may indicate data (e.g., data block or elementand/or channel and/or data stream) and/or an (associated)acknowledgement signaling process and/or resource/s on which the data(or, in some cases, reference signaling) is to be received and/orindicate resource/s for associated feedback signaling, and/or a feedbackresource range on which associated feedback signaling is to betransmitted. Transmission associated to an acknowledgement signalingprocess, and/or the associated resources or resource structure, may beconfigured and/or scheduled, for example by a scheduling assignment.Different scheduling assignments may be associated to differentacknowledgement signaling processes. A scheduling assignment may beconsidered an example of downlink control information or signaling, e.g.if transmitted by a network node and/or provided on downlink (orsidelink control information if transmitted using a sidelink and/or by auser equipment).

A scheduling grant (e.g., uplink grant) may represent control signaling(e.g., downlink control information/signaling). It may be consideredthat a scheduling grant configures the signaling resource range and/orresources for uplink (or sidelink) signaling, in particular uplinkcontrol signaling and/or feedback signaling, e.g. acknowledgementsignaling. Configuring the signaling resource range and/or resources maycomprise configuring or scheduling it for transmission by the configuredradio node. A scheduling grant may indicate a channel and/or possiblechannels to be used/usable for the feedback signaling, in particularwhether a shared channel like a PUSCH may be used/is to be used. Ascheduling grant may generally indicate uplink resource/s and/or anuplink channel and/or a format for control information pertaining toassociated scheduling assignments. Both grant and assignment/s may beconsidered (downlink or sidelink) control information, and/or beassociated to, and/or transmitted with, different messages.

A signaling characteristic may comprise one or more characteristics.Example characteristics may comprise message format (e.g., 0_1, 0_0, 1_01_1, 0_n or 0_m or similar), message size (e.g., in bits and/or resourceelements) and/or aggregation level (e.g., how over it is repeated)and/or resources in which it is received (e.g., CORESET and/or searchspace) and/or an identity or addressee of the message, e.g. indicated byan identifier like a scrambling code (e.g., RNTI, with which for exampleerror detection coding or CRC associated to the message may be scrambledto identify an addressee). For example, an URLLC RNTI may be used toidentify that an associated resource is to be used, or an eMBB RNTIanalogously. Different formats and/or characteristics may be associatedto different resources (e.g., on a one-to-one basis), such that theformat or resource or RNTI may indicate which resource to use.

Example types of signaling comprise signaling of a specificcommunication direction, in particular, uplink signaling, downlinksignaling, sidelink signaling, as well as reference signaling (e.g., SRSor CRS or CSI-RS), communication signaling, control signaling, and/orsignaling associated to a specific channel like PUSCH, PDSCH, PUCCH,PDCCH, PSCCH, PSSCH, etc.).

In this disclosure, for purposes of explanation and not limitation,specific details are set forth (such as particular network functions,processes and signaling steps) in order to provide a thoroughunderstanding of the technique presented herein. It will be apparent toone skilled in the art that the present concepts and aspects may bepracticed in other variants and variants that depart from these specificdetails.

For example, the concepts and variants are partially described in thecontext of Long Term Evolution (LTE) or LTE-Advanced (LTE-A) or NewRadio mobile or wireless communications technologies; however, this doesnot rule out the use of the present concepts and aspects in connectionwith additional or alternative mobile communication technologies such asthe Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM). While describedvariants may pertain to certain Technical Specifications (TSs) of theThird Generation Partnership Project (3GPP), it will be appreciated thatthe present approaches, concepts and aspects could also be realized inconnection with different Performance Management (PM) specifications.

Moreover, those skilled in the art will appreciate that the services,functions and steps explained herein may be implemented using softwarefunctioning in conjunction with a programmed microprocessor, or using anApplication Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC), a Digital SignalProcessor (DSP), a Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) or generalpurpose computer. It will also be appreciated that while the variantsdescribed herein are elucidated in the context of methods and devices,the concepts and aspects presented herein may also be embodied in aprogram product as well as in a system comprising control circuitry,e.g. a computer processor and a memory coupled to the processor, whereinthe memory is encoded with one or more programs or program products thatexecute the services, functions and steps disclosed herein.

It is believed that the advantages of the aspects and variants presentedherein will be fully understood from the foregoing description, and itwill be apparent that various changes may be made in the form,constructions and arrangement of the exemplary aspects thereof withoutdeparting from the scope of the concepts and aspects described herein orwithout sacrificing all of its advantageous effects. The aspectspresented herein can be varied in many ways.

Some useful abbreviations comprise

Abbreviation Explanation ACK/NACK Acknowledgment/NegativeAcknowledgement ARQ Automatic Repeat reQuest CAZAC Constant AmplitudeZero Cross Correlation CBG Code Block Group CDM Code Division MultiplexCM Cubic Metric CQI Channel Quality Information CRC Cyclic RedundancyCheck, a form of error detection coding CRS Common reference signal CSIChannel State Information CSI-RS Channel state information referencesignal DAI Downlink Assignment Indicator DCI Downlink ControlInformation DFT Discrete Fourier Transform DM(−)RS Demodulationreference signal(ing) FDD Frequency Division Duplex FDM FrequencyDivision Multiplex HARQ Hybrid Automatic Repeat Request IFFT InverseFast Fourier Transform MAC Medium Access Control, a control layer eMBB(evolved/enhanced) Mobile Broadband MCS Modulation and Coding SchemeMIMO Multiple-input-multiple-output MRC Maximum-ratio combining MRTMaximum-ratio transmission MU-MIMO Multiusermultiple-input-multiple-output OFDM/A Orthogonal Frequency DivisionMultiplex/Multiple Access PAPR Peak to Average Power Ratio PDCCHPhysical Downlink Control Channel PDSCH Physical Downlink Shared ChannelPRACH Physical Random Access CHannel PRB Physical Resource Block PUCCHPhysical Uplink Control Channel PUSCH Physical Uplink Shared Channel(P)SCCH (Physical) Sidelink Control Channel (P)SSCH (Physical) SidelinkShared Channel RB Resource Block RNTI Radio Network Temporary IdentifierRRC Radio Resource Control SC-FDM/A Single Carrier Frequency DivisionMultiplex/Multiple Access SCI Sidelink Control Information SINRSignal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio SIR Signal-to-interference ratioSNR Signal-to-noise-ratio SR Scheduling Request SRS Sounding ReferenceSignal(ing) SVD Singular-value decomposition TDD Time Division DuplexTDM Time Division Multiplex UCI Uplink Control Information UE UserEquipment URLLC Ultra Low Latency High Reliability Communication VL-MIMOVery-large multiple-input-multiple-output ZF Zero ForcingAbbreviations may be considered to follow 3GPP usage if applicable.

1. A method of operating a wireless device in a radio access network,the wireless device being configured with a slot configuration accordingto which a slot has multiple subslots, the method comprising:transmitting acknowledgement information reporting on subjecttransmission in a subslot based on a received timing indicationindicating a subslot number for transmitting the acknowledgementinformation, and based on a subslot offset.
 2. A wireless device for aradio access network, the wireless device configured to: be configuredwith a slot configuration according to which a slot has multiplesubslots; and transmit acknowledgement information reporting on subjecttransmission in a subslot based on a received timing indicationindicating a subslot number for transmitting the acknowledgementinformation, and based on a subslot offset.
 3. A method of operating anetwork node in a radio access network, method comprising: receivingacknowledgement information from a wireless device based on a slotconfiguration according to which a slot has multiple subslots, thereceiving acknowledgement information being based on a subslot based ona timing indication indicating a subslot number for transmitting theacknowledgement information, and based on a subslot offset.
 4. A networknode for a radio access network, the network node configured to: receiveacknowledgement information from a wireless device based on slotconfiguration according to which a slot has multiple subslots, thereceiving acknowledgement information being based on a subslot based ona timing indication indicating a subslot number for transmitting theacknowledgement information, and based on a subslot offset.
 5. Themethod according to claim 1, wherein the timing indication indicates oneof a plurality of values available for the subslot number.
 6. The methodaccording to claim 1, wherein the subslot offset is one of configuredand configurable.
 7. The method according to claim 1, wherein thereceived timing indication indicates the subslot offset to be applied.8. The method according to claim 1, wherein the subslot offset indicatesa group of subject transmissions to which the acknowledgementinformation pertains to and which are reported together, the group beingone out of a plurality of groups of subject transmissions.
 9. The methodaccording to claim 1, wherein the subslot offset is applied based on atleast one of: at least one signaling characteristic of a schedulingassignment scheduling subject transmission to be reported on; and thesubject transmission to be reported on.
 10. The method according toclaim 1, wherein transmitting acknowledgement information is based on aHARQ codebook, the HARQ codebook comprising HARQ feedback pertaining tosubject transmissions associated to the same subslot offset.
 11. Themethod according to claim 1, wherein transmitting acknowledgementinformation is based on a fixed HARQ codebook.
 12. The method accordingto claim 1, wherein the timing indication is represented by a bitpattern in a downlink control information message.
 13. The methodaccording to claim 1, wherein the timing indication is represented by abit pattern in a downlink control information message, the bit patternbeing interpreted differently depending on whether a fixed HARQ codebookis used or a dynamic HARQ codebook is used.
 14. A computer storagemedium storing a computer program comprising instructions configured tocause processing circuitry to at least one of control and perform amethod of operating a wireless device in a radio access network, thewireless device being configured with a slot configuration according towhich a slot has multiple subslots, the method comprising: transmittingacknowledgement information reporting on subject transmission in asubslot based on a received timing indication indicating a subslotnumber for transmitting the acknowledgement information, and based on asubslot offset.
 15. (canceled)
 16. The method according to claim 3,wherein the timing indication indicates one of a plurality of valuesavailable for the subslot number.
 17. The method according to claim 3,wherein the subslot offset is one of configured and configurable. 18.The method according to claim 3, wherein the received timing indicationindicates the subslot offset to be applied.
 19. The method according toclaim 3, wherein the subslot offset indicates a group of subjecttransmissions to which the acknowledgement information pertains to andwhich are reported together, the group being one out of a plurality ofgroups of subject transmissions.
 20. The method according to claim 3,wherein the subslot offset is applied based on at least one of: at leastone signaling characteristic of a scheduling assignment schedulingsubject transmission to be reported on; and the subject transmission tobe reported on.
 21. The method according to claim 3, whereintransmitting acknowledgement information is based on a HARQ codebook,the HARQ codebook comprising HARQ feedback pertaining to subjecttransmissions associated to the same subslot offset.